A Look at Governor Mitt Romney's Record as Governor of
Massachusetts as it Relates to the Gun Owners and Sportsmen of Our State

Prepared
by: Gun Owners’ Action League (GOAL) - February 2007

Mitt Romney was Governor of Massachusetts from January 2, 2003 – January 4, 2007

General Comments

In the first months of the Romney
administration the Governor isolated himself to all but a handful of close
advisors most of whom came from the business community. This caused the Governor
to make some rather serious political missteps that could have been avoided
through better communications. However, relations dramatically improved and in
the end, GOAL had more access to this administration than any other since the
days of Governor Ed King in 1979.

The two major events that eventually led to
this improved relationship were the raid on the Inland Fisheries & Game Fund in
2003 and a botched press conference/bill signing in 2004. Both situations are
outlined in this report.

While at the time these events greatly angered
GOAL members, the result was much improved access to the Governor’s office and
his staff. During the following years, senior level Romney staffers met on a
monthly basis with GOAL’s Executive Director to discuss and work on any issues
relevant to GOAL’s members. This should not be taken as an indication that GOAL
“controlled” the corner office, but rather that a very good working relationship
was developed that benefited both parties.

Legislation: During the Romney
Administration, no anti-Second Amendment or anti-sportsmen legislation made its
way to the Governor’s desk.

Governor Romney did sign five pro-Second
Amendment/pro-sportsmen bills into law. His administration also worked with Gun
Owners’ Action League and the Democratic leadership of the Massachusetts House
and Senate to remove any anti-Second Amendment language from the Gang Violence
bill passed in 2006. A summary of this legislation follows.

Budgetary: In the Governor’s first
year, he made a political error when he submitted a budget that did away with
the Inland Fisheries &
Game Fund. (More of this is explained below.) Fortunately, after this matter
was resolved, GOAL was able to establish better communications with the
Governor’s office. In working with the legislature and the Governor we were able
to restore the Fund and increase the money released from it to better manage the
Division of Fisheries and Wildlife.
Over the next three years, GOAL was also successful in getting some “capital
revenue” released to acquire land for the Division.

Regulations: During his administration,
the
Executive Office of Public Safety passed a new regulation providing free
replacement of firearm licenses to those who had them stolen or lost. (A
resident license fee in Massachusetts at that time was $100 every 6 years.)
Prior to this new regulation a citizen would have to repeat the entire
application process and pay the whole fee to acquire a replacement license.

Policy: His administration conducted a
review of the state’s Environmental
Police agency (Game Wardens). One major concern was to keep in place the
hiring requirement that officers needed to have some environmental education
background not strictly law enforcement. This was a policy that GOAL worked to
support.

Fees: In 2003 Governor Romney filed
budgetary language to raise firearm license fees from $25 to $75. That year the
legislature actually raised them to $100 in the General Appropriations bill (Section
34 of Chapter 140 of the Acts of 2003). At that time a resident license was
good for 4 years. In 2004 a law was passed increasing the license term to 6
years.

In 2005, Governor Romney waived the
administrative fees for the
Natural Heritage and
Endangered Species Fund. The state currently charges these fees that were as
much as 36% a year. Gun Owners’ Action League worked with environmental
organizations to urge the Governor to temporarily waive the fees until permanent
legislation could be passed to do away with the fees all together.

Appointments: One of the agencies that
GOAL watches very closely is the
Division of Fisheries and Wildlife. This agency is run by a strong
seven-person board. The appointments to this board are spread out over
several years so that drastic changes cannot be made to it in any given year.
During his administration, Governor Romney made five appointments to this board.
All of the individuals appointed to the board were supported by GOAL.

Proclamations: During his
administration, Governor Romney issued a proclamation declaring May 7, 2005 as
“The Right to Bear Arms Day”. The proclamation was issued on this date to
coincide with GOAL’s Annual Banquet.

* It should be noted for readers of this
report that are not familiar with Massachusetts politics that the titles of the
legislation do not always reflect the intent. For instance the bill entitled “An
Act Further Regulating Certain Weapons” was actually a pro-Second Amendment bill
that began the process of reforming the state’s gun laws.

In Mitt Romney’s
first budget as governor in 2003 he proposed that the state do away with all of
the “minor funds” within the state’s accounting system. At the time there were
around 80 or so minor funds dealing with all sorts of government programs. The
Massachusetts House and Senate followed suit.

As a result of this
the Inland Fisheries and
Game Fund, considered a "minor fund", was done away with and all the money
was diverted into the General Fund in an attempt to balance the state budget.
The Inland Fisheries and Game Fund is where all of the sporting license fees
(hunting, fishing, trapping, etc.) are deposited. Unknowingly the Governor had
touched what is referred to as a “Third Rail” in politics.

The Inland Fisheries
and Game Fund is considered to be sacred among sportsmen, conservationists and
environmentalist in Massachusetts. The Fund, which was created by sportsmen,
accounts for over 90% of the review that our Fish & Wildlife Agency operates on.
The dedicated Fund was also necessary under federal law if the state wanted to
take advantage of matching money from the federal government.

As a result of the
action, a coalition of sportsmen, conservationists and environmentalist formed
the Massachusetts Conservation Alliance (MCA) to rescue the fund. After several
months of lobbying the legislature and the Governor’s office, the MCA was
successful in the re-instatement of the Inland Fisheries and Game Fund. The
Governor signed the re-instatement legislation into law in October of 2003.

This is a perfect
example of don’t believe in titles. The bill was the greatest victory for gun
owners since the passage of the gun control laws in 1998 (Chapter
180 of the Acts of 1998). It was a reform bill totally supported by GOAL.
Press and media stories around the country got it completely wrong when claimed
the bill was an extension of the “assault weapon” ban that had sunset at the
federal level. They could not have been more wrong. Unfortunately for the
Governor, someone had also wrongly briefed him about the bill. As a result the
Lt. Governor and the Governor made statements at the bill signing ceremony that
angered GOAL members. The following is what the bill actually did:

1.Established the
Firearm License Review Board (FLRB). The 1998 law created new criteria for
disqualifying citizens for firearms licenses that included any misdemeanor
punishable by more than two years even if no jail time was ever served.

For instance, a
first conviction of operating a motor vehicle under the influence would result
in the loss of your ability to own a handgun for life and long guns for a
minimum of five years. This Board is now able to review cases under limited
circumstances to restore licenses to individuals who meet certain criteria.

2.Mandated that a minimum of $50,000 of the licensing fees be used for the
operation of the FLRB so that the Board would not cease operating under budget
cuts.

3.Extended the term of the state’s firearm licenses from 4 years to 6
years.

4.Permanently attached the federal language concerning assault weapon
exemptions in 18 USC 922
Appendix A to the Massachusetts assault weapons laws. This is the part that the
media misrepresented.

In 1998 the
Massachusetts legislature passed its own assault weapons ban (MGL
Chapter 140, Section 131M). This ban did not rely on the federal language
and contained no sunset clause. Knowing that we did not have the votes in 2004
to get rid of the state law, we did not want to loose all of the federal
exemptions that were not in the state law so this new bill was amended to
include them.

5.Re-instated a 90 day grace period for citizens who were trying to renew
their firearm license. Over the past years, the government agencies in charge
had fallen months behind in renewing licenses. At one point it was taking
upwards of a year to renew a license. Under Massachusetts law, a citizen cannot
have a firearm or ammunition in their home with an expired license.

6.Mandated that law enforcement must issue a receipt for firearms that are
confiscated due to an expired license. Prior to this law, no receipts were given
for property confiscated which led to accusations of stolen or lost firearms
after they were confiscated by police.

7.Gave free license renewal for law enforcement officers who applied
through their employing agency.

8.Changed the size and style of a firearm license to that of a driver’s
license so that it would fit in a normal wallet. The original license was 3” x
4”.

Prior to this bill
passing there were two different laws on the books in Massachusetts that defined
what a loaded muzzle loader was. This bill corrected the language in the laws so
that now both provide that if the priming device is removed, the muzzle loader
is considered unloaded. Although this bill sounds like a “no brainer” it took
nearly 5 years to pass.

The Hunter
Education bill, S.469, was signed into law by Governor Mitt Romney on July 6,
2006.

The new law will
require that all first time hunters complete a hunter education course prior to
being issued a hunting or sporting license. This was already the law prior to
very confusing language that was passed in SECTION 7 of
Chapter 180 of
the Acts of 1998. GOAL successfully had an amendment included to amend
the bill to “grandfather” anyone who has been issued a license prior to January
1, 2007.

As part of the
1998 law the Massachusetts legislature passed severe restrictions on the sale of
handguns in Massachusetts by creating an absurd list of testing requirements
that all handguns must be subjected to before being eligible for sale in the
state. At the same time, the Massachusetts
Attorney General’s office fraudulently used the consumer protection laws of
the state to do the same thing. Because of these actions, high grade target
pistols could not be sold in Massachusetts. This bill addressed that issue.

This is what the new law does:

Provides that any
firearm lawfully owned or possessed under a license issued under this
chapter on or before October 21, 1998 would be exempt from the testing
criteria. This language was passed into law in
Section 79 of
the Acts of 1998, but was never actually placed into the statutes. This
law now established this exemption in Chapter 140.

During his
administration, the Executive Office of Public Safety approved a new regulation
providing free replacement firearm licenses to those who had them stolen or
lost. (A resident license fee in Massachusetts at that time was $100 every 6
years.) Prior to this regulation being created a citizen would have to repeat
the entire application process and pay the entire fee to acquire a replacement
license.

Although this
particular legislation was not a GOAL bill, we list it here because there were
several anti-Second Amendment sections in the original draft. The legislative
sponsors of the bill, GOAL, and the Romney administration all worked together to
remove any bad sections. We were successful in doing so and actually came up
with some new language that more effectively went after the criminal element.